Open Water World Cup
Silver for Burnell in Abu Dhabi

Jack Burnell took to the waters off the Abu Dhabi coast today in the second leg of the FINA/HOSA Marathon World Cup, claiming silver with a strong performance in the 10km event.

Following a tough few weeks of training and competition in Australia, including winning silver (10km) and gold (5km) at the Australian Open Water Championships two weeks ago, Burnell’s Olympic preparation continued in style, finishing today’s gruelling race in a time of 1:47.47.00 just behind Olivier of France.

The girls

Olympic silver medallist Keri-anne Payne was the first of the British girls to finish, just missing out on a medal as she came in just 0.4 seconds behind Ana Da Cunha of Brazil, with France’s Aurelie Muller taking first place.

Danielle Huskisson finished in 14th place after a consistently paced swim, coming home less than a minute behind the race leaders, while City of Swansea teenager Sophie Evans crossed the line in 36th.

Ahead of the competition, British Swimming’s marathon programme lead Bernie Dietzig commented, "UAE is the first World Cup for us in the 2016 season and is a good race opportunity after the winter training period. All our swimmers have come off solid training blocks heading straight into this 10 km, which will be fairly challenging.”

Pre-race fun

Watch this 'epic fail' from Burnell as the squad trained in Abu Dhabi ahead of today's competition!